Boneless
by wynnie the pooh
Summary: When Tempe Brennan is called to Washington to investigate a curious murder, she is only looking forward to the time she will get to spend with Canadian Andrew Ryan. She does not consider the peril she will soon be in with a killer on the loose.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

I had never thought I would die like this. Despite that small fact, I could see the irony in the situation.

He held out a pale hand, and when I did not take it, slapping it quickly across my face. I could feel the skin smart, and I raised my own hand to my cheek. The scar that was only just starting to heal along the edge of my eye had opened up again, and blood seeped onto my fingers, hot and sticky.

_Breathe._

The room was dark, and small, and my claustrophobia had set in as soon as he had placed me here.

_Breathe. _

_Don't retaliate._

'Temperance Brennan. World famous anthropologist. What a fitting setting, isn't it?'

I glanced at the walls, and through the gloom I could see the bones, sticking from the walls. This was truly the pit of death.

'Do you know how you will die?' he asked me. I bit my tongue and shook my head.

_Don't retaliate._

'Do you know what's it's like to have every bone cut from your body?' Another shake. 'No? Do you know what it's like to have it done when you're still awake?'

* * *

**Hi. This is a new story based on the Temperance Brennan novels by Kathy Reichs. First in the category! :) Hopefully now that the summer holidays are coming up in Australia, I'll have time to write a lot. I hope you like it. Please review, and fans of the books, please be assured, I am a Ryan/Tempe fan. Also, fans of the TV show Bones, be warned, this is hardly anything like the TV show, but it is still a brilliant series, and I hope this will be a good story. Thanks.**

**Arawynne**


	2. Chapter 1

It was a icy day when I arrived in Washington D.C. Not my haunt of choice, but it made for an okay vacation spot if that was the kind of thing you were into.

I wasn't.

I'm a forensic anthropologist. That usually doesn't mean much to anyone unless you're in the field, but what I do is simple enough to comprehend. When a body is found so decomposed or past the stage of recognition through finger-prints and flesh and all that what-not that coroners and medical examiners deal with, I get called in. I look at the bones. And usually - well, lets face it, practically always - I can learn things from them that can make or break a case. Identity. Cause of death. This is my realm. This is my kingdom.

Now, back to the point: While D.C is home to the White House, the National Museum, and any other number of monuments that Americans are proud to call their own, it is not such a fun place to work. Especially not in the winter.

The one plus I had to look forward to: five star hotel.

Normally, I work half my time in Quebec, at the _Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de medecine ledgale, _where I get to regularly brush up on my chunky French, and sometimes brush up with my slightly more than friends partner, SQ detective Andrew Ryan. That is, when he isn't too amused with his brand new, 19 year old, party-going daughter.

The other half of my time is spent in Carolina, where I grew up, where the summer is warm, and the air is filled with flowers. Even in winter, it hardly ever snows, and you can never, _ever, _be trapped in an airport.

This, as you probably have already guessed, is where I was then.

And like most things that hold me up from my job (however unpleasant it can be), it pissed me off.

I have this thing. The cops I usually work with take it in their stride, but the first responders - the rookies that arrive at the scene and call in the appropriate personnel - think it's a personal thing I have against them. It's not. Really.

I just like to have my crime scene fresh. I don't trust rookie's with avoiding contamination. Cops have a habit of turning over the body to find ID, or digging through a pile of bones for any kind of jewelry or clothing. I like to arrive before anyone's been within fifteen feet of the thing, and the surrounding is pristine since it was found. It's easier that way. Nothing can escape notice; nothing is obscuring the evidence.

But here, trapped in Ronald Reagan Naitonal Airport, I couldn't get to the crime scene. To top it all off, my blackberry had conveniently lost all charge, so I couldn't even call up the precinct to tell them to keep the area clear. In all, it seemed I'd lost my crime scene.

I'd collapsed onto one of the horrible plastic chairs lining the walls and carefully placed my luggage beneath my seat when I remembered my laptop. I'd carefully packed it in my carry-on, but I'd neglected to take it out during the flight. Maybe it still had some charge.

I rested the Mac on my lap, flipping the lid and pushing the on button. The harddrive whirred upliftingly, and the start up screen raised my spirits a bit. Hopefully it would last long enough to send a hasty email, with some possible rude words included.

I quickly opened my Mail and typed a message to the precinct. I didn't head it with a particular name. When I got called to this job, nobody had bothered to inform me about the detectives I would be working with. Instead, I got a troupe of bodyguards to the airport, and I was told another troupe would be there to pick me up. I'd managed to avoid these guards without little trouble, by changing my clothes on the plane.

My email sent, I closed my laptop and slipped it back into my bag. I stood up and paced across the corridor.

I'd managed to find one of the few secluded corridors in this airport since they closed the doors. Apparently there was some kind of snow blockage, and the vehicles usually brought in to solve this kind of problem were conveniently broken. So we were all stuck here till they could some Zamboni's or something from another airport.

In the food courts and near the doors, people were milling and crowding, but I - unlike my fellow travellers - was smart enough to know that becoming part of the crowd was pointless, so instead I was in one of the corridors that led to the aircraft themselves, and where very few people currently felt they needed to be.

My only problem about these particular spots, was my ability to be sought about my posse if they only looked.

It was at that moment that I spared a glance up to the end of the corridor, where to my disappointment, I saw the guard in black already milling at the end. With a call they saw me and started running in my direction.

'Hi,' I said calmly when they stood in front of me.

'Would you like to be taken into custody for evading arrest?' they asked me.

'No,' I replied. 'Not particularly. All I've been doing is sitting in this corridor.'

'You switched clothes. You purposely deceived us.'

'I don't really know why you're here in the first place. I don't normally have a guard when I travel. And if you haven't already looked up my frequent flyer stats, I tend to travel a lot.'

'It's for your own safety, ma'am,' the guard in front said.

'My own safety from what?'

'That's classified.'

I coughed, sarcasm oozing into my tone. 'And I don't already have high-level clearance? It's my own safety for god's sake!'

The two men in front looked at me, then at each other. One gave a small nod, and the other turned back to face me.

'There's been a threat on your life.'


End file.
